Jackson Free Press

Newsweek business columnist Daniel Gross explains why investor ire at Obama about the stock market's ups and downs is misplaced. And he advises Obama to ignore the naysayers and stay focused:

Investment professionals and econo-pundits claiming to speak for Wall Street have been blaming President Obama for the recent run of losses in the stock market. To their minds, investors around the world are giving a daily thumbs up or thumbs down to the administration's manifold policy initiatives. OBAMA'S RADICALISM IS KILLING THE DOW, read the headline of a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Stanford economist Michael Boskin, an official of the first Bush administration.

On March 3, Strategas analyst Dan Clifton noted that "with the S&P 500 off close to 8.5 percent since the budget was introduced, it is clear that equity investors remain skeptical of the government's plan to lead us out of this financial crisis." Even CNBC's James Cramer, who supported Obama during the campaign, has turned on the president, calling him a "wealth ."

Talk about misplaced anger. Wall Street built a wooden house, stuffed it with flammable material, set it on fire and then poured gasoline on the blaze. And now it's blaming the inferno on the arson inspector, who wasn't appointed until after the fire had reached three-alarm status?

Alas, the investor in chief is taking notice. In early March he made a tentative stab at bucking up the markets. "What you're now seeing is profit and earning ratios starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal, if you've got a long-term perspective on it." (Maybe if this whole Leader of the Free World thing doesn't work out, he can get a gig on CNBC.)

Obama's commendable tendency to engage his critics is misguided in this case. He should be ignoring the Dow. The index has fallen about 50 percent from its closing peak of 14,164 on Oct. 9, 2007. (That was the week the Fox Business Channel debuted. Coincidence? I report, you decide.) Everything about the markets has been chopped in half—their value, their moral authority and hence their claim on Washington's attention. Having deprived Americans of so much of their wealth, the market is today like Rush Limbaugh: an unpopular loudmouth prone to emotional outbursts.

When Obama compared the Dow to a "tracking poll in politics," he made an error commonly seen in the Washington– Wall Street corridor. Securities markets are decidedly not public-opinion polls. In the fall of 2007, when the Dow was at its peak, only 25 percent of Americans thought the country was on the right track, according to the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. And since Obama's election, the right-track number has exploded to the upside, from 11 percent in early November to 41 percent this month—even as the markets plunged.

Previous Comments

ID

144728

Comment

Ladd, Good point. As John Stewarts crew on the Daily Show recently pointed out: Ronald Regan elected: Dow went down for six months. End of WWII: Dow went down for several months. Sinking of the Titanic: Dow immediately went up (smile) I'll go and post the link of the actual Daily Show "bit" right now.

Author

FrankMickens

Date

2009-03-16T08:15:39-06:00

ID

144730

Comment

Ladd, Here's that Daily Show linK. http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220253&title=The-Dow-Knows-All

Author

FrankMickens

Date

2009-03-16T08:37:36-06:00

ID

144819

Comment

Hey, this is totally off topic but I didn't know where to send it. Did you see the Missouri police document labeling Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr supporters terrorist? I would send the link but I'm on my phone. They do not deny the document, and you can google it. I just thought it would be a good blog topic. The document basically allows the police to label a person as a threat if they display stickers, flags, signs, ect that show support for those politicans or the Libertarian party in general. One phrase that was on the list was the " don't tread on me" phrase that, ironically, flew from my dad's navy ship.

Author

....

Date

2009-03-17T14:22:03-06:00